


take care

by robotsdance



Category: Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Aftercare, Bondage, Bottom Jaime Lannister, Dom/sub, Established Relationship, F/M, Light Dom/sub, Pegging, Post-War, Rope Bondage, Safewords, Subspace, Top Brienne of Tarth, but damn if they aren’t trying their best, kink negotiations between people who don’t have a lot of language to describe what they’re doing, subspace is fun but the emotional stuff can be intense, traumatized people navigating their sex life
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-21
Updated: 2019-07-21
Packaged: 2020-07-09 12:42:25
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,520
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19888006
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/robotsdance/pseuds/robotsdance
Summary: It’s a process, learning about this new element between them, but it doesn’t take long for her to get a handle on the basics: hold him down and overload his senses until he drops.Alternatively: Brienne learns how to top Jaime into oblivion.





	take care

**Author's Note:**

> Prequel/companion to [in our bedroom after the war](https://archiveofourown.org/works/19772764/chapters/46807237) because apparently I can’t resist writing the figuring it out fic

The first time Jaime yields to her in bed she stops immediately, releasing her hold on his wrists and lifting her hips up so he is no longer inside of her. Then she asks if he is hurt.

Beneath her a startled Jaime is blinking up at her, obviously disoriented. It takes him a beat to register that she is asking him questions about his welfare but all he manages to say is, “Why did you stop?”

“You told me to,” Brienne says with concern. Did he not remember gasping that he yielded as he strained against her hold on him?

“I didn’t—“ Jaime says, earnest truth on his face, and then realization swallows the rest of his sentence as he looks up at her and says only, “Ah.”

He’s quiet for a moment as he reaches for her hand, threads their fingers together. Squeezes.

“Brienne,” he says, quiet and serious, “When I said that I didn’t mean stop.”

“You said that you yielded. That means stop.”

“It does,” he agrees, “But I…” He trails off like he’s thinking very hard about how to phrase what he wants to say next.

Brienne thinks she understands, but she doesn’t want to get it wrong. Nothing anyone had taught her has prepared her for anything like this. “You want to be able to yield,” there’s an inflection on the word yield that is both new and deeply intimate, “To me, as part of this. And not have me stop.”

“Yes,” Jaime looks as vulnerable as she’s ever seen him, “Is that alright?”

“It is,” she feels him relax under her as she agrees, “But what will you say if you want me to stop?”

“Something else,” he says at once, “We’ll pick a different word for that.”

“What word?”

They go back and forth a few times before choosing the word they will use. They repeat it to each other until it settles between them like an oath.

The second time Jaime yields to her in bed she keeps doing exactly what she was doing that made him exclaim that in the first place and a few moments later he comes so hard she thinks he might pass out.

*

Tonight she’s the one fucking him, in the most literal sense of the phrase. It’s not the first time they’ve done this, but it still feels very new to be the one inside him rather than the other way around. The harness he’d gotten for her works wonders, every roll of her hips brings them both closer to completion. It won’t be long now, not for either of them, but especially for Jaime. He’s the picture of abandon as he writhes against her, twisting against the sheets and touching her everywhere he can reach as she braces herself above him.

He kisses her and runs his hand down the side of her face as his right arm trails up and down the side of her waist, urging her closer, harder, all the while he tells her how much he loves this, loves her. He’s trying to get her to come first, which would be obvious anyway but then he tells her that. Tells her that he wants to watch her, wants to see her finish as she fucks him. She needs little more encouragement than that to do so.

When she is able to look down at him he’s grinning up at her, his hand wandering up and down her thigh, feeling her muscles relax in the wake.

“Brienne,” he asks once she’s stopped trembling quite so much, but she doesn’t know what he’s asking for. Then he puts arms over his head, crosses his wrists, right over left, and says, “Please.”

She adjusts her stance enough so she can capture both of his wrists in her sword hand and lean down on them, pressing him down firmly against the bed.

The sound that he makes, the way he arches off the bed from hip to shoulder, is enough to confirm that she’s doing something right, but then he exhales a soft, “Thank you” that nearly breaks her apart.

Jaime’s had her hold him down a few times, but never when she’s the one fucking him. She guides herself back into him and goes slow, watching what it does to him. And what it does to him is fascinating. The wordless sounds of encouragement he’s making, the way he’s watching her, the way he’s begging her for more. She can’t get enough of him like this. So she does it again, and again, and again, until his eyes slide out of focus and then drift closed.

When he opens his eyes a moment later he’s staring up at her with a gentle but singular intensity that she doesn’t recognize. His eyes are clear but he seems dazed, his body shockingly pliant under hers. Like there’s not a fragment of tension anywhere in him as she holds him down. Whatever this is, it has never happened before.

“Jaime?”

He blinks. Stares. His pupils are huge and dark. She shifts her hip slightly, wondering if she should stop and see if he’s alright but he gasps like it’s the best thing that’s ever happened to him. She does it again and bliss overtakes his features. He manages to say her name and then a whimpered “please” so full of rapture she’s certain he’s not asking her to stop. He knows the word to use if he wants her to stop and he has not said it, so she fucks him through this, whatever it is, all the while Jaime lies spellbound by pleasure beneath her.

He spills not long after, her hand on his cock to ease him over the edge. She’s brought him off plenty of times, but she’s never seen him transported quite like this as he convulses and then collapses against the bed.

She releases his wrists and cleans them up a little with a spare piece of cloth, then takes off the harness and lies down beside him. She wants to ask him about what just happened, but whatever just happened hasn’t worn off yet.

There’s no tension in his body, no apprehension in his face, no sign that any part of that was anything but intensely enjoyable, but she still wants to ask him about it.

“Jaime?”

He turns his head towards the sound of her voice and then he rolls onto his side to follow, moulding his body to hers as he wraps his arms around her. She holds him securely, lets him relax into her touch, which he does like it’s the most soothing thing he can imagine.

She can feel him breathing, steady and deep, against her chest.

Tomorrow, she thinks as she runs her fingers through his hair until after he has drifted off to sleep, they’ll talk about this tomorrow.

*

“Can I ask about what happened last night?”

He looks at her from across the table where they are breaking their fast and nods.

“You seemed…” she hesitates, unable to find the right word for the way Jaime had been towards the end of their encounter. Far away is the first phrase to come to mind but that’s not right at all. The way he’d looked at her was anything but distant as he gazed up at her like she was the only thing that mattered, the only thing he could see. He had been so soft and willing beneath her touch. She gives up on trying to explain it to him and gets right to the point, “I just want to make sure you were alright.”

“It felt good. Really good,” Jaime assures her, “Really really good.” At least she’s not the only one struggling to get this experience into words.

“What happened?”

Jaime thinks about it for a moment before he says, “You were holding me down and I was so…” He pauses again and Brienne wonders if he will be able to find a word to describe how he was. She certainly couldn't. “Safe,” Jaime says, “I was so safe. And then I felt myself give in to you. Completely. Because you had me.”

“I had you.”

“You did.”

“And it felt good.”

“Extremely good.”

“And that’s never happened to you before?” she asks, wondering if this is a first for him as well as her, “Not with—”

“I was never safe with Cersei.” He says it with such simple truth that her heart aches.

“But you’re safe with me,” she says, because she can’t help but say it. Because it’s true.

He looks right at her when he answers, “Yes.”

*

The next time he gives in to her completely she recognizes it for what it is and the intimacy of it takes her breath away. The way his whole body goes slack as he drops into the trance of it, the way he looks at her when he’s under. Feeling him give himself to her with such trust, such love, feels like awakening a power she didn’t know she had.

*

“Brienne of Tarth,” he says, low and thoughtful against her collarbone, “What do you want to do this fine evening?”

Objectively speaking the evening is unpleasant at best. Howling winds and pouring rain do not generally merit such a generous description, but they’re in bed together and have spent the greater part of the last while trading stories and unhurried affection that is just now reaching the cusp of escalation, so she can’t help agree with his assessment.

He trails kisses towards her neck and then asks again what she wants.

Her answer catches in her throat because it’s not the answer she thinks she should give. She’d be perfectly happy having this encounter continue along its projected course, his warm weight on hers as he takes his time, but what she really wants right now is—

“Brienne.”

She’s never asked for this before. The other times it had happened (and it had only happened twice), he had been the one asking her to take control. Asking her to hold him down. And even then the fact that he ended up surrendering to her completely wasn’t what he had asked for in the first place. It was just a thing that happened that neither of them fully understands yet.

She’s never even asked to hold him down. She only does that when he asks her to (which he does often, but still). She can’t ask him to give up control to the point of complete submission. She’s not even sure he could do such a thing if she did ask. So she won’t ask.

Jaime is still waiting for an answer, patient and curious and Jaime. So very Jaime, “Whatever it is, I will do it if I can.”

She shouldn’t ask it of him. Can’t ask it of him. Promises herself that she will not ask it of him. But he coaxes it out of her not long after.

“Why the hesitation?” he asks as he makes no effort to contain how pleased he is by her request, “Surely you must know by now that you can have that whenever you like.”

Still she hesitates, afraid to put the lingering insecurity into words, but after a moment of quiet she admits, “I feel like I shouldn’t enjoy it so much.”

There’s a grin tugging at the corner of his mouth, “Rest assured you can not possibly enjoy it more than I do.”

She feels herself smiling in spite of herself at the truth of that but she still has the nagging feeling that she shouldn’t like doing that to him so much. And maybe it’s giving voice to all the people who told her what being bedded was like when she was young. Pain and obligation. Something to endure. An unpleasant duty. In short, nothing at all like what it is with Jaime. But even if they were wrong about everything, she still feels like she shouldn’t like taking control as he submits to her.

But she does. She loves being able to feel him trusting her enough to let go, knowing that he feels safe enough to just

Drop.

She hasn’t been able to come up with a better way to describe it, but both times it happened she had been holding him down and seen it claim him, felt his submission overrun his body as he went limp and willing beneath her. And once he was under he was hers, completely at her mercy as she drew pleasure from him beyond what he could articulate, beyond what he could comprehend. Gods, the way he looked at her when he was like that. The boundless trust. The absolute safety. The unguarded desire. And the love. Gods, the love.

How could she not enjoy that?

She wants to hold him down and learn everything about what makes him drop, how many different ways she can do this to him. She wants to know everything about this part of him that only she gets to experience. She wants to find out how far she can take him, what makes him feel that safe, what makes him feel that much. She wants to hold him down. She wants control. And he wants that too. He wants her to have control. Wants to yield to her. But still she…

“Brienne, I would never expect… I would never ask you to be in my place,” he says, “Never.”

Her throat tightens. That wasn’t what she had been thinking about but she hadn’t realized how much she needed to hear him say that until he did. Appreciates it more than she can say so she nods and hopes he understands the depth of her gratitude. Because she’s thought about it. Thought about the way being held down makes him feel. Safe. That’s how he describes it. And that is not… that is not how she would feel.

“And you know what to say if you ever want to stop,” he says as his thumb brushes across her cheek, “And so do I. So just enjoy it.” He rolls onto his back, presents his wrists for her to take hold of, “I know I do.”

She feels warm all over with relief and something else. Something powerful. Something playful, “I know you do.”

He grins and she moves so she’s on top of him but doesn’t put any of her weight on him, doesn’t take his arms in hand. Not yet. Instead she echoes the way he was exploring her body before he asked what she wanted tonight, mapping her appreciation onto his skin, his scars. She does not take a moment of this for granted and she needs him to know that.

When she does finally take hold of his wrists and leans into him, letting him feel her weight pin him down, she does not do so lightly. His submission is a gift more rare and valuable than Oathkeeper. She vows to wield it with the care and precision such a precious gift deserves.

And a little while later, when he drops under her deliberate control and the thrill of his complete surrender rolls through her, she enjoys it.

Immensely.

*

It’s a process, learning about this new element between them, but it doesn’t take long for her to get a handle on the basics:

Hold him down and overload his senses until he drops.

*

They’re out on a little expedition to explore the island, get out on their own for a few days, put their horses through their paces, sleep under the stars. The warm breeze smells of the sea and she can hear the ocean in the distance. They’re near enough to the coast for the ebb and flow of water to be everywhere. It wasn’t until she got back to Tarth that she’d realized how much she’d missed it.

Jaime is laying their bedrolls beside the fire she built. “You can tie me to a tree if you like,” he jokes, “For old times sake.”

“I reckon I could tie you to more interesting things now.”

She isn’t even looking at him as she says it, doesn’t glance up from the fire until she notices his silence and turns to him to see what it's about.

He’s stopped mid-task, thunderstruck. When he notices she’s watching him he manages to ask, “Like what?”

“Our bed, for a start.”

His breath hitches, “You’d do that?”

She’s not sure how this is a revelation. She’s held him down with her hands many times by now to their mutual satisfaction. Using rope seems like a reasonable alternative to explore. 

“Only if you wanted me too.”

“If I wanted you to?” he repeats weakly, like the concept of ‘if’ is so distant in this context it’s taking considerable effort to wrap his mind around it.

“Imagine what I could do with both of my hands free,” she adds lightly and he looks ready to throw himself at her. She smiles.

“How… how many more days did we plan to be out here?” he asks. His tone is casual but she can hear the anticipation simmering just under the surface.

“Three.”

“Three days.”

It sounds like a very long time when he says it.

*

“What are you going to do about…?” he gestures with his right arm.

His left arm is already tied, a simple restraint around his forearm just below his wrist that will not work on his right arm.

But Brienne has had three days to think about how she is going to do this so she takes another length of rope and gets to work, bending his wrist towards his shoulder and tying him so that he’s got a little room to move but it’s impossible for him to straighten his arm. Then she secures his arm to the bed.

“How’s that?” she asks as she runs one of her fingers between the rope and his body in several places in turn, testing the tightness, looking for anywhere that might cause pain, “Are you comfortable?”

“Yes,” he breathes, “Oh gods yes.”

*

He likes to compliment her rope work as she ties him up. Today she’s only managed to get the rope in her hands before he tells her how grateful he is that she’s so good with knots.

She accepts the compliment (she is good with knots), but then she points out what she assumes is obvious, “The knots don’t need to be fancy to be effective. They just need to be inaccessible.”

And then to prove her point she ties him down with a series of strategically placed quick-release bows.

Once she’s secured his left arm down with rope wrapped four times around his wrist and a bow placed where he can see it but can’t reach it she settles back, straddling his waist. She crosses her arms and invites him to test her work.

He squirms and struggles against his bindings as she watches. Within moments he’s relaxed into the rope and he’s gazing up at her with a deliciously familiar look in his eyes.

“See?” she says a little while later as she pulls on the single strand of rope that releases his left arm, “Inaccess—”

He grabs her with his newly freed hand and kisses the rest of the word from her mouth.

*

The tension between them today is exquisite. They’d been out in the yard sparring for the better part of the afternoon and her body is so aware of him she can barely think of anything else. Jaime is suffering from the same problem and is making no secret of his ongoing hardship. But they don’t have time. They’re going to be late for their evening meal as it is. Surely they can make it through one meal before following through on all the promises their bodies have made each other.

They wash separately, neither of them to be trusted naked and so near the other in this state but they still end up getting dressed at the same time as Jaime playfully bemoans that their clothes are going in the wrong direction.

She agrees as she moves to tie up the laces of his tunic to speed this up. The faster they get downstairs and eat the sooner they’ll be back here. She brushes his hand aside with hers and he stops to watch her but her fingers aren’t cooperating. The sense memory of her hands on his tunic like this in her room in Winterfell overwhelm her, his skin gold and warm in the firelight, his eyes on hers full of hope as the tension rose…

“Brienne.”

It’s a question and a plea and a promise all at once but they have guests waiting for them, so she forces her fingers to obey and finishes her task. Touches his chest once, to let him know she’s done, and then they head downstairs together.

*

Their evening meal is an excruciating political chore, but they survive. Barely.

“Tell me what you want tonight,” she commands him in an undertone when they are finally on their way back to their bedchamber.

So he does, feral with desire as he describes the way he wants her to hold him down and fuck him and please, he begs, please not the rope tonight, because he wants it to be her, all her, just her, holding him down and her fucking him and gods he can’t wait to feel her hands on his arms and—

Brienne shoves him up against the wall beside the door that leads to their bedchamber with a bruising kiss that he returns with a groan and they’re all over each other for a time, even as they both struggle to get the door open without breaking contact.

It’s a collective effort to get the door to open, and a collective effort to get them through it, distracted by more important things as they are. He kicks at the door as she undoes the laces of his tunic and pulls their mouths apart long enough to get it over his head and onto the floor as they continue towards the bed. She’s reminded of the way they had been at each other in the yard, swords in hand, as they grapple and pull each other closer, any distance between them too great.

She becomes aware the door they just wrestled their way through is still half-open and makes a mental note to fix that before this gets much further. She just needs to get Jaime to the bed—

Jaime submits the moment she pins him down, dropping as suddenly as the mid-day sun shifting to the dead of night in the blink of an eye. He’s never gone under so quickly or so abruptly before and he’s looking up at her like all of his wildest dreams for this evening are already coming true. Like he’s ready and waiting for her to take control and—

The door. The door is still open. She has to close the door.

She gets up and crosses the room and once the door is closed and bolted she returns to Jaime. He is still lying on the bed, still deep under, but something is different. Something is wrong. She was only out of reach for a moment, only out of his sight for less than that, but now there’s a distance in his eyes that wasn’t there before.

She says his name.

He does not even blink.

Then he says the word.

She’s at his side in an instant, asking what he needs, telling him to answer her however he can, whenever he can, as she touches his hand. She’s afraid to further overwhelm him but the more she touches him the more he responds, pressing into her touch like he’s starving for it so she lies beside him, pulls a blanket over them both, and holds him close.

He trembles in her arms without saying a word for a very long time.

*

Brienne wakes up the next day with Jaime curled up against her, his arm over her waist holding her to his chest. It takes her a minute of lying still to not disturb him to realize he’s already awake.

“Morning,” he murmurs to the back of her neck.

She turns to face him, his hand still on her as she settles so their bodies mirror each other where they lie in the middle of their bed. She’s still wearing the clothes she was in the night before, and she knows he has noticed this. Knows he understands why. He touches her face, traces the path of her jaw with his fingertips, says her name carefully, full of love.

They both start by trying to apologize, each of them tripping over their words to insist that the other’s apology isn’t necessary. So they start again and talk through what happened. It doesn’t take them long to come up with a plan.

When Jaime is under she’ll stay right with him. Never out of reach. Never out of sight. That’s always been the case before, but the simple necessity of that measure is now abundantly clear. And if Jaime ever drops too soon or too fast, in such a way that whatever they had planned is no longer possible or she feels something is off, she’ll say the word and stop and stay with him until he come back up.

Jaime, for his part, promises to make sure the door is closed, that anything Brienne or he might need is within reach before he goes under. That way she will be free to focus on him without having to worry about everything else as well.

*

She’s still murmuring thanks and praise when he leaves the place he had taken up between her thighs and makes his way back up her body. She’s still a bit uncoordinated, her limbs heavy and warm as she reaches up to pull him down into a kiss. She tangles her fingers through his hair and sighs, utterly content. He hums against her lips and she smiles at the now-familiar sensation. Gods, how is this a normal part of their lives? To which of the seven does she need to light a candle for to thank for this?

Of course, it’s not any of the seven she wants to express her thanks to right now.

The urge to take care of Jaime to the absolute best of her ability is constant, but it’s so strong in moments like this she struggles to articulate it. But she will try. She will try.

“I can take control,” she offers. They haven’t tried it since the last time, when he dropped so fast neither of them knew what to do, “If you’d like that.”

He looks down at her and smiles, “I’d like that.”

“And if you want me to stop—”

“I know.”

“I mean it, if you’re even a little uncomfortable—”

“I know,” he repeats, kisses her for good measure, reassuring and profoundly trusting, “I know. And the door is closed. I made sure.”

She nods and then rolls them over so she’s above him.

Her movements are careful and deliberate as she takes hold of him, her grip firm as she takes more and more control from him, all the while talking to him gently, guiding him to stay with her. He is soft and willing beneath her already but she doesn’t push, doesn’t rush, just leads him ever closer to the depths and lets him sink.

This time he slips under like the setting sun, slow and beautiful. Inevitable. 

His eyes are beacons of light, of love, as he stares up at her. There is none of the distance there was last time. He is right here with her.

Safe.

Afterwards, she stays right with him as he begins to come back up, lying beside him and making sure to keep her hand on him, tracing circles on his chest so he can feel her there. He says her name, sooner than she would have expected, and when she answers he moves to press himself against her, buries his face against her neck.

All his edges are blurred and indistinct, like whatever is inside him is too big too contain and she can feel him struggling with the magnitude of it, but it’s different than last time. It’s not fear that has him shaking in her arms.

His voice is tight with emotion when he manages to whisper a ragged “Thank you,” against her skin.

Brienne pulls him closer, her hand on the back of his head holding him steady as she rubs his back with her other hand. Then she tells him he’s safe and gives him permission to let it out, whatever it is that’s rattling around inside him that he’s just barely managing to hold back.

His gratitude escapes from him as a desperate sob so she holds him while he weeps.

*

Sometimes, when they’re both in a certain mood, Brienne has him bring her what he wants her to use on him.

Tonight he’s brought her rope.

She is more than happy to indulge him, but he’s forgotten something, so she welcomes him back to bed but then tells him to hold that thought as she goes to collect what is missing.

“What are you doing?” Jaime asks from where he’s lounging on their bed. He’s lying on his back but he’s propped up on both elbows, watching her with amused interest.

She holds up the knife she went to get to show him before making her way back to the bed, putting the knife on the nearest table before sitting down beside him.

“Why?” He looks perplexed, but she finds it hard to believe he hadn’t thought of this kind of safety measure before.

“What if there’s an emergency and I need to untie you quickly?” she explains like it’s obvious. She’d thought of this before the first time and picked the knife specifically: sharp on only one side of the blade so that she could slip it between the ropes and his flesh to cut him free without hurting him. She’d made sure the knife was always nearby if he wanted to be tied up, he just hadn’t noticed until tonight, “What if there’s a fire?”

“Oathkeeper is right there.”

He looks between the sword and her with a smile on his face.

“If there’s a fire I’m not using Oathkeeper to free you,” she says flatly.

“Imagine,” he sighs dreamily, and as he goes on to describe the scenario it’s clear the potentially life-threatening emergency that would have Brienne using her sword on his bindings is really not the point of this little fantasy.

Still, she lets him finish his lavish description before she shuts him down with a simple, “No.”

“You’re no fun,” he teases, moving in to kiss her.

She smiles against his lips. “None at all,” she agrees.

*

The next time he brings her rope he brings the knife as well. Lays it on the bedside table with care and gives her a little nod before joining her on the bed.

*

“How’s that?” she asks, finishing her final adjustment to the rope around his arms, “Better?”

Jaime wriggles against his bindings, testing the tension and the position he’s in. They’re on their fourth or seventh variation of this set up, depending on how they are keeping track. “I think so. My arms feel better like this.”

This time his arms are tied so that his wrists rest against the small of his back, but he’s able to spread his elbows further from his torso than the last variation, giving him more freedom of movement to hopefully reduce the strain on his shoulders when he gets into position. She looks over her work again, making note of the path the rope, the knots she used to keep him there, just in case this is the one that works. Having his arms tied behind his back is very good for certain activities (which they have explored at length on previous occasions), but he really likes the idea of being able to lie on his back with his hands tied behind him. They haven’t quite figured it out yet but they’re not giving up.

Which is why they’re spending an otherwise uneventful afternoon testing various methods of tying him up with his arms behind him in the hopes of finding one that will allow him to end up on his back and stay there for a while without pain or discomfort.

She slides a finger between the rope and his back, getting a sense of how snug it is and he makes a pleased noise.

“Stay focused,” she chides him, “We need to figure this out while you’re fully here.”

“When I’m like this I’m always fully here,” He turns to look over his shoulder at her with a grin.

“You know what I mean.”

The plan was to do this important research (as Jaime called it) in the middle of the day while fully clothed so as not to be tempted by _distractions_. That way they could talk through it and tie him up as many times as it took without other pressing concerns interrupting their progress. At one point he had suggested going as far as conducting these tests in a more public space to ensure that they remained focused on the task at hand (such was his determination to solve it). Brienne had shot that idea down, which was just as well because Jaime had insisted on doing this important research naked from the waist up.

For accuracy, he had said.

And she’s not complaining but she’s not sure it is entirely necessary.

“Alright,” she says, moving so she’s not sitting right behind him on their bed, “Give it a try.”

He grins at her again. She’s waiting for a quip but it doesn’t come, he just lowers himself down onto his back and then makes a face, his discomfort at lying on his arms taking priority over what he wants.

She offers to help him up, to try again, but he shakes his head, his brow furrowed in concentration.

“Maybe if I—” he plants his feet and lifts his hips up enough to release the strain from his arms with a thoughtful hum. She takes two pillows that they had cast aside earlier and props them under his hips. He lowers himself back down until he’s no longer holding any of his weight up with his legs and waits for a moment.

His eyes light up with triumph.

“I think this will work!” he shifts back and forth slightly, tilting from side to side, not once does his expression indicate pain. His arms are beneath him as he wanted, but they are now bearing almost none of his weight, “Try tying my ankles!”

She makes quick work of his request, but she’s still tying off the knot when he exhales a blissful, “This will work.”

Brienne looks up then and sees him laid out before her and her heart skips a beat. Ankles bound, his arms trapped behind his back, ropes encircling his bare chest: he is the picture of defenceless. But his eyes are closed and he’s smiling like he’s floating through the most pleasant dream.

His absolute vulnerability to her shocks her still. Even after all this time.

It’s the opposite of a revelation. She knows he trusts her, and has known. For years. But knowing he trusts her and feeling the weight of him acting on that trust with such conviction is enough to knock her over.

Gods, he loves her so much.

“Brienne?”

She can tell by the concern in his voice that it’s not the first time he’s said her name.

“We don’t have to do this,” he says as he looks up at her, “If you don’t want to.”

“It’s not that,” she shakes her head. She wants to. Very much.

“Then what is it?”

“Nothing. It’s just… You trust me.” It feels so inadequate when she says it out loud compared to the swell of truth inside her chest.

“Of course I do.”

“I know.” She takes a breath that’s shakier than she would like it to be, “I know. But sometimes when I see you like this and I feel it all at once…” she looks up and blinks, talks to the ceiling because it’s easier than looking at him right now, “It’s overwhelming sometimes. That’s all.”

“Brienne,” his tone is warm and understanding and achingly intimate, and it does not make her feel any less overwhelmed by his love for her, “Come here.”

The test is successful. He’s able to lie there with her for as long as he needs to.

*

Jaime is especially chatty tonight as he fucks her. The only time he’d shut up even a little was when his tongue was otherwise occupied, but even then he’d relished in pulling his mouth just far enough away from her to comment on one thing or another at intervals designed to have her cursing his name in mounting frustration.

When he’d finally relented enough to let her come he was still talking away and hadn’t stopped as she’d hauled him back up her body to kiss him, and even that only succeeded in quieting him until she shifted his position enough to have him sink into her with a groan. Then he’d had even more to say.

And he hasn’t stopped since. Fucking and talking and talking and fucking and she’s come a second time now so it’s not like she’s actually annoyed but gods does he know how to get under her skin and drive her absolutely mad.

“You’re infuriating,” she tells him in the midst of another winding tangent of a monologue as he drives into her, “I have half a mind to make you just. Shut. Up.”

He slams into her with a little whimper he only makes when he is painfully close, “You wouldn’t.”

She drags her heel up the back of his leg, lets her fingernails scratch across his back as he thrusts harder. Then she says, “I could.”

It’s the strangled way he says, “I know” that makes her follow through, grabbing him and wrestling him over so he’s caught under her, trapped in her unforgiving grip.

Usually he gives her control, but this time she takes it. The difference is not lost on Jaime as he yields and yields in a desperate rush, straining against her as she straddles his hips but denies him what he needs, all the while he’s talking at double speed, pleading with her to have mercy he was so close is so close he’s so close he’s so close—

Then words fail him and Brienne feels the wave of submission flood through him as he drops.

Jaime’s still speechless when he starts to come back up. He looks over at her with a euphoric smile before he rolls over to collapse against her, pressing his face to her shoulder as he giggles with giddy delight.


End file.
